The UbuntuNet Alliance family continues to grow.
In August this year UbuntuNet Alliance formally accepted the Zimbabwe Academic Research and Education Network (ZARNet) as one of its NREN Members following an application process that started in September 2015.
ZARNet was established in 1997 by the Government of Zimbabwe to provide internet connectivity to the Zimbabwean government, academia and the country’s research sectors.
And following ZARNET’s expression of interest to be one of the NREN Members of UbuntuNet Alliance, the regional Research and Education Network (REN) for Southern and Eastern Africa, the Alliance accepted the network as the sixteenth NREN member effective August 2016.
The development means that the NREN will now be able to benefit from the Alliance’s services that include connectivity to the UbuntuNet Network and participation in the Alliance’s engineer capacity building programmes among other benefits.
Reacting to the acceptance of their network as a member of UbuntuNet Alliance, ZARNet’s Chief Executive Officer Evans Vete expressed delight at the admission saying the NREN is looking forward to benefiting a lot from being a member of the Alliance.
“ZARNet is glad to be part of the UbuntuNet Alliance which has a vision and goal of growing the region’s Research and Education Sectors and being connected to the global network. We expect to learn and benefit a lot from our membership to to the Alliance” said Vete.
On his part UbuntuNet Alliance CEO Dr. Pascal Hoba welcomed ZARNet as a member of the Alliance and pledged to help the NREN benefit fully from its new membership status.